Misgivings About the Cars (and The Cars)

On multitasking, portkeys and the worst kind of test.

I often fantasize about a world without cars. I’d walk everywhere. Moving sidewalks might appear after a certain distance (perhaps app-activated), as in airports, minus the impatient striders behind me. I’m picturing an on-call metallic pathway (magically freed of fallen leaves, snow or animal feces), running parallel to our scenic Berkshire lanes and leading me to the supermarket, the library, my workshop, my gig. When I need to travel over state lines, I’ll find a portkey, but one in slow mo. No nausea or accidental tumbling into Voldemort when I land.

Ruben Gutierrez for Unsplash.

New York City is the closest I’ve come to this. The subways are portkeys. Descend and speed along and ascend and there I am, the place I need to be—dizzying but effective. I lived in Manhattan during the first decade of this millennium and the MTA took me everywhere. I could read while traveling (heaven)—or people watch. There were plenty of other anxieties. (Rent. Grading papers. A wildly dysfunctional rel…